Favorite Board Games

Any board game freaks out there? On any given Friday or Saturday night there is a good chance you will find my wife and me with friends playing board games. Our favorites of late have been:

Settlers of Catan - This is the game by which all other games should be compared. I've heard it discribed as a cross between monopoly and risk. It's a great game as the board changes every time you play, Your goal is to "settle" Catan by building roads, settlements and cities. In order to do so you have to trade and build. It also has a number of additions: Seafarers of Catan and Cities and Nights of Catan. I guess there is also a "biblical" version of the game, although I'm not sure how it works.

Ticket to Ride - It won German game of the year in 2004. This actually means something as the Germans have been making some sweet games (Settlers of Catan). In this game you try to make train routes across the United States. The key is getting the good routes completed before your oppenents. It's surprisingly simple (8 years and up would be my guess), yet alot of fun.

Carcassone - This one is a bit hard to explain. It involves drawing tiles that are either field, road, church, city, or a combination of road/city/field or road/church/field. You then use your game pieces to "claim" them and earn points for completion.

One that I used to like was Stratego. My brother and I would play that game on family vacations.

There was a great bit in Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's "Hush" storyline in Batman where it has a flashback of Bruce and his childhood friend playing Stratego. It was great. There was one moment where Tommy Elliot says to Bruce something along the lines of (don't have the particular issue with me here in Victoria), "But you forgot my most important piece." "But I got your General." "Nope...my SPY!"

Kyle, I play Cities & Knight of Catan weekly. Two couples from Indiana moved here and started attending my church. They introduced the Settlers and Cities & Knights to my associate pastor and his wife. My associate pastor evangelized me, and I have spread it onto my best friend, his wife, and three kids, and to two other families. In total, I've won 12 people to Catan.

If you want to PM me, my best friend and I've created many new and engaging variants to Catan. I'd be happy to explain to you what we affectionately call Communist Catan.

Alas, the greatest board game ever created, I play online by e-mail, but it is nearly impossible to find seven competent people for a face-to-face game of Diplomacy, the favorite game of John F. Kennedy and Henry Kissinger.

Settlers of Catan - This is the game by which all other games should be compared. I've heard it discribed as a cross between monopoly and risk. It's a great game as the board changes every time you play, Your goal is to "settle" Catan by building roads, settlements and cities. In order to do so you have to trade and build. It also has a number of additions: Seafarers of Catan and Cities and Nights of Catan. I guess there is also a "biblical" version of the game, although I'm not sure how it works.

That would be Evangelists of Catan, and the fundie church down the street like to play there own variation called Snakehandlers of Catan.

You know the Mormons have a version of Settler of Catan, called Settlers of Zarahelma. Of course, I read on Orson Scott Card's website that he just played regular ol' Catan.

The Mormons make some fun board games though. I saw that Deseret has a board game division, and even one game called, It Came to Pass. I don't know anything about the game, but I have an idea of what it is like. You open up the Book of Mormon on any given page, and count how many times those exact words are used as a transitional phrase. I've played that very game in my Book of Mormon reading days, and on two pages with two columns of verses on each page, my personal best is finding It Came to Pass in nine seperate verses.

Whoever wins gets to punish the opposing players by reciting an extended version of the Monty Python sketch of the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch. It's fun times...

Settlers of Catan - This is the game by which all other games should be compared. I've heard it discribed as a cross between monopoly and risk. It's a great game as the board changes every time you play, Your goal is to "settle" Catan by building roads, settlements and cities. In order to do so you have to trade and build. It also has a number of additions: Seafarers of Catan and Cities and Nights of Catan. I guess there is also a "biblical" version of the game, although I'm not sure how it works.

That would be Evangelists of Catan, and the fundie church down the street like to play there own variation called Snakehandlers of Catan.

Good times, good times.

QUOTE(Michael Todd @ Mar 14 2006, 02:40 AM)

You know the Mormons have a version of Settler of Catan, called Settlers of Zarahelma. Of course, I read on Orson Scott Card's website that he just played regular ol' Catan.

The Mormons make some fun board games though. I saw that Deseret has a board game division, and even one game called, It Came to Pass. I don't know anything about the game, but I have an idea of what it is like. You open up the Book of Mormon on any given page, and count how many times those exact words are used as a transitional phrase. I've played that very game in my Book of Mormon reading days, and on two pages with two columns of verses on each page, my personal best is finding It Came to Pass in nine seperate verses.

Whoever wins gets to punish the opposing players by reciting an extended version of the Monty Python sketch of the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch. It's fun times...

I have a soft spot for board games. There's a closet filled with them in my parents' house, nostalgia from my childhood. Some of my favorites were Aggravation, Stay Alive, Life, Careers, and a game called Rules of the Road where we moved cars around roads printed on the board. When I was a kid, I thought that was a lot of fun. I liked to play with the Monopoly game pieces, though I never actually managed to finish a full game. Another game my brother and I got a kick out of was Stop Thief, because it had a remote control that gave sound effects for crimes, broken windows, police sirens, and footsteps.

I had friends that were a huge Cranium kick a couple of weeks ago, so we played once a week for a while. It was fun to play with the Playdoh.

In our church, Mexican dominoes and Taboo have always been popular. I think Taboo and Pictionary are the official games of Christian youth gatherings.

My favorite board game though is Pass the Pigs, where you roll plastic pigs like dice and score points if they land on their snouts or on their backs.

If you want to PM me, my best friend and I've created many new and engaging variants to Catan. I'd be happy to explain to you what we affectionately call Communist Catan.

Oh, do tell! I love Catan -- especially Knights and Cities (which a friend has). I have Settlers and Seafarers, but we don't play Seafarers much for some reason. Catan is likely tops in our house, but Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit are a close second and third.

We enjoy Pit with the right group of friends, and dominos (yes, Mexican Train, and sometimes Chicken Feet). Stock Ticker and The Farming Game are good. We used to play Canasta once or twice a week, but have played only once in the past few years.

My favorite board game though is Pass the Pigs, where you roll plastic pigs like dice and score points if they land on their snouts or on their backs.

Makin' Bacon!!

QUOTE(Tim Willson @ Mar 14 2006, 11:52 AM)

QUOTE(Michael Todd @ Mar 13 2006, 09:42 PM)

If you want to PM me, my best friend and I've created many new and engaging variants to Catan. I'd be happy to explain to you what we affectionately call Communist Catan.

Oh, do tell! I love Catan -- especially Knights and Cities (which a friend has). I have Settlers and Seafarers, but we don't play Seafarers much for some reason. Catan is likely tops in our house, but Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit are a close second and third.

Personally, I've only played Knights and Cities once. I really enjoyed it, but haven't been in the mood to fork out another $40 for the expansion. We have Seafarers, but we too don't play it that often. I think it's because it takes too long to set up. We only play it if we know we can get a good two or three games in. It's fun to play though for the mere fact that sheep are actually worth something.

Oh, do tell! I love Catan -- especially Knights and Cities (which a friend has). I have Settlers and Seafarers, but we don't play Seafarers much for some reason. Catan is likely tops in our house, but Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit are a close second and third.

Communist Catan -- No one negotiates trades. No one loses half their cards if seven is rolled. Also, city walls are meaningless, so if you get an Engineer card, you can put that at the bottom and get another. Everyone holds seven cards, and if you get over that, you lay out anything you want to get rid of in a pile in front of you. Another player on their turn can take something from your pile in one-to-one trades only. This game was created because of three player games which turned into two-on-one grudge matches and because it speeds up a friend who takes forever to make moves.

Quick Catan -- To make a game significantly faster, instead of following the rules which say only give out resource cards for the city you placed, hand out resource cards for the settlement places and resource and commodity cards for the city placed. This simple act cuts game length in half. I suggest it if you give Communist Catan a try. Alas, I play with my associate pastor at times, and he's a Pharisee that can't tolerate this perversion.

United Nations Catan -- You can only trade with other nations that connect to your roads, or that you could reach if you extended your road.

Desert Fortress Catan -- If you build on the desert, you get to hold one extra card from the robber if you have a settlement there, two if you have a city.

Nehemiah Catan -- If you or another player completely surrounds a hexagon tile with roads, then the robber can't be placed there. It's too heavily patrolled.